3D Printing for Cardiovascular Surgery and Intervention: A Review Article.

3D printing technology can be applied to practically every aspect of modern life, fulfilling the needs of people from various backgrounds. The utilization of 3D printing in the context of adult heart disease can be succinctly categorized into 3 primary domains: preoperative strategizing or simulation, medical instruction, and clinical consultations. 3D-printed model utilization improves surgical planning and intraoperative decision-making and minimizes surgical risks, and it has demonstrated its efficacy as an innovative educational tool for aspiring surgeons with limited practical exposure. Despite all the applications of 3D printing, it has not yet been shown to improve long-term outcomes, including safety. There are no data on the outcomes of controlled trials available. To appropriately diagnose heart disease, 3D-printed models of the heart can provide a better understanding of the intracardiac anatomy and provide all the information needed for operative planning. Experientially, 3D printing provides a wide range of perceptions for understanding lower extremity arteries' spatial geometry and anatomical features of pathology. Practicing cardiac surgery processes using objects printed using 3D imaging data can become the norm rather than the exception, leading to improved accuracy and quality of treatment. This study aimed to review the various applications of 3D printing technology in cardiac surgery and intervention.

Recurrent Cushing Disease: An Extensive Review on Pros and Cons of Different Therapeutic Approaches.

OBJECTIVE: Recurrent Cushing disease (CD) is characterized by the reappearance of clinical and hormonal aspects of hypercortisolism that occur more than 6 months after an initial post-treatment remission. METHODS: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the evidence about remission and complication rates after transsphenoidal surgery (TSS) radiotherapy (RT) and medical therapy (MT) in recurrent CD patients. A quantitative systematic review was performed. Article selection was performed by searching MEDLINE (using PubMed), and Cochrane electronic bibliographic databases through 2020. RESULTS: We noted 61 articles described therapeutic management of recurrent CD patients with representative outcome. A total of 723 patients received different therapeutic modality for their recurrent CD. The remission rates were 0.65 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.60-0.70), 0.57 (95% CI 0.51-0.63), and 0.75 (95% CI 0.60-0.86) in the TSS, RT, and MT subgroups, respectively. The total remission rate after therapeutic approaches on recurrent CD patients was 0.64 (95% CI 0.60-0.68). A test for subgroup differences revealed there was a statistically significant difference between different subgroups (P = 0.01). The post hoc test showed that in comparison with RT, TSS (P = 0.0344) and MT (P = 0.0149) had a higher rate of remission. However, there was no statistically significant difference between separate therapeutic modalities in terms of complications including diabetes insipidus (P = 1.0) and hypopituitarism (P = 0.28). CONCLUSIONS: Compared MT and TSS, RT has a statistically lower rate of remission. Although there is robust superiority of surgery over RT, interpretation of MT data must considered with caution due to the small number of included cases and wide CI range.

MRI-Negative Cushing's Disease: A Review on Therapeutic Management.

OBJECTIVES: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we review the literature regarding patients with Cushing's disease (CD) with negative or inconclusive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). METHODS: A quantitative systematic review was performed. Article selection was performed by searching MEDLINE (using PubMed), EMBASE, and Cochrane electronic bibliographic databases. RESULTS: 28 articles described surgical management of inconclusive MRI or MRI-negative CD. A total of 858 patients underwent surgery for their Cushing adenoma. Different types of surgery, including endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal surgery (EETS) (190 cases) and microscopic endonasal transsphenoidal surgery (METS) (488 cases), were performed on patients with MRI-negative CD. 7 studies, which included 164 patients, did not describe any surgery. EETS and METS are conducted to achieve selective adenomectomy (231 cases), partial adenomectomy (80 cases), total adenomectomy (13 cases), hemihypophysectomy (15 cases), or enlarged adenomectomy (48 cases). Based on available data on these studies, the remission rate, persistence rate, and recurrence rate after different types of surgeries on patients with MRI-negative CD were 72.97%, 27.03%, and 12.05%, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between EETS and METS in the subanalysis regarding recurrence rate, remission rate, and persistence rate. However, the recurrence rate in the METS group is almost 3 times higher than in the EETS group. CONCLUSIONS: Surgery has a good prognosis in patients with MRI-negative CD in terms of remission, and EETS has a lower rate of disease recurrence than METS; therefore, EETS seems to be the potential recommended treatment technique, while to confirm the therapeutic method of choice, further investigations should be done.

Hemorrhagic Vestibular Schwannoma: Case Report and Literature Review of Incidence and Risk Factors.

Hemorrhagic vestibular schwannoma (HVS) consisting of acute intratumoral and subarachnoid hemorrhage presents with acute nausea, vomiting, facial numbness, headache, loss of consciousness, and significant functional impairment of the facial and vestibulocochlear nerves. The current case is of a 31-year-old man who was presented with acute left lateral suboccipital headache, vomiting, ataxia, and loss of consciousness. Brain CT revealed a large iso-intense lesion with internal hematoma at the left cerebellopontine angle in association with internal acoustic canal dilation. In addition, MRI confirmed a 32 x 25 x 26 mm vestibular schwannoma (VS) with 20 x 15 x 5 mm intratumoral hematoma. The patient had undergone left lateral suboccipital craniotomy and microscopic tumor resection. Pathological findings revealed that his lesions were VS. The average incidence of HVS is around 2.15 cases per year worldwide. Therefore, HVS incidence in proportion to VS is very low and consequently rare.